


292. holy

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [121]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 16:38:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8408929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: “A feather,” Sarah says slowly.
“It’s mine,” Helena says.
“Thanks for sharing.”
“No,” Helena says, “no, it’s – mine.” She reaches around Sarah – Sarah can smell her, for a minute, winter and bone – and turns on the lamp. Then in one frantic movement she pulls her shirt over her head and turns her back to Sarah.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [warnings: self-harm scars, body horror]

Sarah wakes up in the middle of the night to Helena sitting at the edge of her bed, urgent and inhuman. Her eyes reflect the light, like a cat’s. They are all that Sarah can see in the dark – besides the vague shape of Helena’s silhouette.

“Whass goin’ on,” she grumbles, sleep-slur.

“Something is wrong,” Helena whispers urgently, and Sarah’s eyes open as she sits up. She can’t see anything wrong – which is to say, there is no blood on Helena’s hands.

“What,” she says, rubbing frantically at her eyes with the heel of her hand in a desperate attempt to wake herself. “What is it?”

Helena crawls across the bed and tugs one of Sarah’s hands forward. One of Helena’s hands is curled into a fist; she uncurls it and drops something soft into Sarah’s palm. She takes back her hand. All that is left is a pure white feather, swan’s plume, pillow-filling, angel down. It is utterly innocuous.

“A feather,” Sarah says slowly.

“It’s mine,” Helena says.

“Thanks for sharing.”

“No,” Helena says, “no, it’s – _mine_.” She reaches around Sarah – Sarah can smell her, for a minute, winter and bone – and turns on the lamp. Then in one frantic movement she pulls her shirt over her head and turns her back to Sarah.

Sarah winces, despite herself, at the jagged edges of all of Helena’s scars. Then she focuses on the small white tuft poking out of one of them.

“Helena,” she says slowly, and Helena makes a desperate gulp of a sound and says “I know, I know, I do not know where they are coming from, I pull them out but more come back Sarah they _itch_.” She cranes her neck at an uncomfortable angle to watch Sarah over her shoulder. Sarah can only see part of her eyes; mostly she only sees the back of Helena’s skull. What she can see looks – well. All Sarah can think about is Kira, five years old, running in bawling with a scraped knee and waiting for Sarah to kiss it better.

_Fix it. Please. You have to know what to do._ Helena never had a mother, never had that blind faith that someone besides you will know exactly how to fix it. Now she has Sarah – but Sarah is fixating, horrified, on that white feather growing out of Helena’s scar.

“Can I,” she rasps, and touches it. Helena shivers. Both of them hold their breaths, the moment fragile and terrible—

And in one sharp motion, Sarah pulls the feather out.

Helena makes a low wail of a sound; her head jerks back around, head bows towards her chest. She shudders. Sarah holds the feather in her hand: the end of it is bloody, and it’s Helena’s blood, and it’s Helena’s feather. Helena’s breathing is an endless series of terrified hiccups, going on and on and on.

“Holy shit,” Sarah says numbly. In front of her Helena starts giggling, high and hysterical, each laugh another twist of a knife. It sounds painful. It doesn’t sound anything like joy, and Sarah wishes she would stop.

“Holy,” Helena says shrilly, “holy holy holy.” She buries her face in her hands and keeps on laughing, the sound more like a wail than anything else. She is shaking, now, full-body. Sarah can see another feather-bud buried in another scar. She could pull it out. She could sit here with Helena forever and pull every single feather out.

“You can’t fix it,” Helena tells her palms. “Can you.”

“I,” Sarah says, and nothing else – which is, of course, and answer in and of itself.

Helena keeps on shaking. She doesn’t say anything either. Slowly she folds into herself, forehead meeting her knees, a posture that looks painful – a posture that stretches the skin of her back taut over her ribs. Sarah could count feathers. She isn’t sure she wants to.

“Helena,” Sarah says, but Helena doesn’t answer. She just likes there shaking, terrified and holy.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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